Figure skating at 2022 Olympics a trip - from sublime to absurd to sublime

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Figure skating at 2022 Olympics a trip - from sublime to absurd to sublime

It all started routinely, with a team event in which the medalists finished in the expected order (ROC-USA-JPN), and Russian Olympic Committee’s Kamila Valieva unsurprisingly became the first woman to land a quadruple jump in the Olympics.

After that, the 2022 Winter Olympics figure skating competition went from the sublime to the absurd to the sublime.

The team event was over only a day when the cancellation of its formal medal ceremony led to a week in which doping (especially Russia’s doping), pitiless training methods and the sad collapse of Valieva, the 15-year-old at the center of the story, turned into a firestorm as depressing as it was devastating.

Within a few hours of a story by Olympic specialist website Inside the Games that a legal issue about doping had prevented the team event medals from being presented, the website reported the case involved Valieva, the heavy favorite in women’s singles.

Valieva’s positive doping result from a December test, the bureaucratic laxity that followed, the decision that allowed her to compete in singles – it all brought recrimination, tears, anger and numbness as Valieva staggered under the weight of it, and the world watched in dismay.

How sadly bizarre was it that Court of Arbitration for Sport rulings on figure skating matters were as significant as nearly anything that happened on the ice?

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Valieva falls, women's singles event ends in anguish, anger and numbness

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Valieva falls, women's singles event ends in anguish, anger and numbness

The scenes were surreal, full of the visceral pain of two Russian teenagers and the numbness of a third, flooded with the thunderous sobbing of a Japanese woman who is 21, all overcome by the swirling maelstrom that had enveloped the women’s singles event at the 2022 Winter Olympics for a week.

There was little joy in any of this when it ended, not for the four skaters who were atop the standings, not for those who watched it, hopefully not for the officials who avoided yet another surreal moment only because a 15-year-old crumbled in front of the world.

No asterisks now will be necessary for the medal results. There will be a formal ceremony Friday in which Anna Shcherbakova (ROC) will receive the gold, Aleksandra Trusova (ROC) the silver, Kaori Sakamoto of Japan the bronze.

Kamila Valieva’s collapse in the free skate made it possible for the International Olympic Committee to continue as planned with the presentation, to pretend that there is something normal about a situation filled with ethical and procedural and judicial questions, many of which likely will not be answered for months, if at all.

All we know with certainty is that Valieva skated this week under the shadow of a positive doping test and the weight of virtually universal agreement that her continued presence as an Olympic competitor was unfair to the other 29 skaters in the women’s field.

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From Michelle Kwan to Nathan Chen, passing an Olympic torch of representation

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From Michelle Kwan to Nathan Chen, passing an Olympic torch of representation

Nathan Chen has talked frequently about the motivational impact of growing up in Salt Lake City, where reminders of the 2002 Winter Games were widely visible around town throughout his childhood. He began skating at 3, not long after watching snippets of NBC’s Olympic broadcasts.

What captivated Chen equally was seeing -- both at the Olympics and in the following years -- a skater who was not only a champion but also a person who looked like him ... and his four siblings ... and his Chinese immigrant parents ... and others in the Chinese-American community.

That was Michelle Kwan, one of the most decorated and most admired skaters in history, who won an Olympic bronze medal in 2002 -- and, coincidentally, the third of her nine U.S. titles in Salt Lake City three months before Chen was born in 1999.

In interviews following his Olympic triumph Thursday, the first gold medal by a singles skater of Chinese ethnicity, Chen acknowledged more than once how much Kwan had meant to his career as a figure skater.

"Growing up in Salt Lake City and having a face like Michelle Kwan is very inspirational," he said. "Having an athlete that looks like you gives you the hope you can do the same. Michelle Kwan is certainly that for me. That goes back to the power of representation."

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At age 11, Nathan Chen set his course for Olympic gold

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At age 11, Nathan Chen set his course for Olympic gold

Nathan Chen vowed publicly to have fun at his second Olympics, to free his head of the anxiety that overwhelmed him four years ago.

Chen remained so true to that pledge that he even broke out a wry smile after his one mistake in a free skate of surpassing difficulty Thursday afternoon.

He handled the free and an equally demanding short program so well on his sport’s biggest stage that Chen won the Olympic gold medal easily at the 2022 Winter Olympics.

But there was nothing easy about the journey that got him here.

“I never thought I would actually be able to make this happen,” Chen said. “It was a pretty daunting mountain.”

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In potential swan song, U.S. figure skater Jason Brown vows to do things his way

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In potential swan song, U.S. figure skater Jason Brown vows to do things his way

Jason Brown is a skater for an earlier time, the one before multiple quadruple jumps became necessary to win medals at major international competitions.

And yet Brown still is a skater for all time, one who has created indelible impressions from the entirety of his programs rather than from instants of outstanding athleticism provided by the revolutionary jumps.

"I have utmost respect for what those guys are doing to push the sport technically," he said this week in China. "I’m just in absolute awe, and I wish I could be one of them as well. But I am going to push the sport in my way."

That is through performances like the one Brown gave Tuesday in the short program at the 2022 Winter Olympics. His four jumps simply were part of a seamless, compelling expression of a traditional Black spiritual, "Sinnerman," as sung by Nina Simone and choreographed by Rohene Ward with references to what Alvin Ailey created for his landmark ballet, "Revelations."

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